HBD OWS

Happy birthday to the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Your cute little movement turns two months old today.

My very sincere birthday wish for you is below the fold.

TELL ME WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!

TELL ME WHAT HYPOCRISY LOOKS LIKE!
THAT IS WHAT HYPOCRISY LOOKS LIKE!


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

26 responses to “HBD OWS”

  1. JMPrince Avatar

    Not as satisfying as desired perhaps, but here’s some useful stats on the question, via Mike K. @ RortyBomb:
    http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/a-first-look-into-some-distributional-student-loan-data/

    Go to the bottom of the graphs, there are segments of the population that regularly get to $100K in student loans, but mostly those are the professionals. JMP

  2. ire Avatar
    ire

    Funny you should say that…average student loan debt is either 40 or 60k I forget which but it doesn’t matter for my point….I’ve read multiple stories of ows people saying they have 100k in loan debt for undergrad, a couple saying they accrued it in 2 years. Either they’re lying or they have no concept of personal responsibility. That much debt in such a short time is nobody’s fault but their own. Period.

  3. Jen B. Avatar
    Jen B.

    “I mean, that a liberal arts degree that you took out five figures of loans to pay for isn’t landing you in wealth 14 months out of college….shouldn’t be surprising. I actually have a bunch to say about this particular issue but I’m probably not going to say it, unless anyone is actually interested about this in general and specifically.”

    Heh. I’m assuming you meant six figures, not five, and I completely agree.

  4. ire Avatar
    ire

    also, it should be noted I am not saying they should stop or anything like that.

  5. JMPrince Avatar
    JMPrince

    Non allergic to facts. The Economist on some of the problems of the unprecedented levels of youth unemployment, which are hitting folks regardless of most majors:

    “Unemployment: Those silly young people”
    http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/11/unemployment
    (Do see for the embedded WSJ/Census survey of 2010 jobs/employment by majors survey).

    And the BLS figures telling us that in the long run, education does pay:
    http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

    Again not that the facts actually matter to most debates. The facts are complicated, and we might take the time to examine what we think we know from time to time. I know, a very crass & crude suggestion that’s not exactly PC too. JMP

  6. ire Avatar
    ire

    “I know you want to hate all day, every day.”

    FFY.

    For one, I’m allergic to smug. Having been to the original and Occupy London Stock Exchange, I can tell you there is a ton of it. At least I scored some food from Hare Krishna in London.

    Second, there’s really nothing that can be done to ameliorate the “grievances” of the “movement”. I mean, that a liberal arts degree that you took out five figures of loans to pay for isn’t landing you in wealth 14 months out of college….shouldn’t be surprising. I actually have a bunch to say about this particular issue but I’m probably not going to say it, unless anyone is actually interested about this in general and specifically. This is of course, to name just one example.

    I’m vehemently opposed to meaningless protests as well. And you can say they are opposed to “corporate greed” but that’s not at all true, and still, CG is a meaningless term, and does not accurately reflect what would be the true cause of what is driving them to anger.

    And after perusing the OWS tumblr of people posting their stories of how they are suffering at the hands of the 1%, its clear that many are either lying or making stuff up, if they aren’t upset about things that, well you can’t really do anything about.

  7. Jen B. Avatar
    Jen B.

    I know you want to hate on OWS all day, every day, but I’m just not with it. What exactly is your problem with them? I’m glad they have the time, effort and freedom to stick it to the man (even if they’re not being particularly successful – which isn’t always the point).

  8. JMPrince Avatar
    JMPrince

    In real & relevant news that’ll likely be read by few, and understood by fewer, OWS/OA has a perfect target now in Rep. Jack Kingston, who’s going out of his way to make the CFTC the corrupt industry handmaiden it was leading up to the Crash & Collapse. Here from Bloomberg’s story ALL on the corrupt Jackster:

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-27/republicans-try-to-starve-wall-street-watchdog-william-d-cohan.html

    “Republicans Try to Starve Wall Street Watchdog”: William D. Cohan
    By William D. Cohan Nov 27, 2011 5:00 PM ET

    Excellent story, good coverage, and I’m betting few in Ga. will ever know about it. JMP

  9. Jen B. Avatar
    Jen B.

    You will never speak for me.

  10. Juliana Avatar
    Juliana

    Oh damn did my progressive car get pulled again.. sheesh now what will I call myself, oh yeah.. I’m a liberal… no one gets to pull that card.

  11. ire Avatar
    ire

    I don’t even know what you guys are talking about anymore.

    Also, if you’re going to have a sock, at least post from a different IP address.

  12. Jokey Avatar
    Jokey

    Yeah, instead of working hard and winning state committee elections, they should have gained influence the old fashioned way: being appointed by the recommendation of someone who is no longer active in the party.

    You are pretty hilarious, buddy.

  13. Jakey Avatar
    Jakey

    aren’t*

  14. Jakey Avatar
    Jakey

    Jon,

    Don’t get it confused – these people may have wiggled their way into the Democratic Infrastructure, but they do not represent the Democratic Party. They are like those anarchist/audit the fed people at the occupy movement. They aren to in line with our president, our congressional leaders, or our party’s values.

  15. Jon Rich Avatar
    Jon Rich

    And this is yet another reason why REAL progressives and the Democratic Party need to take a permanent vacation.

  16. Steven Earl Salmony Avatar

    The self-procl­aimed masters of the universe among us may be a lot things, but “clueless” or else “disconnec­ted” is not, definitely not an accurate way of describing them. Their overly educated sycophants and absurdly enriched minions present this BS about them as if it represente­d something factual. It is a ruse. These masters of the universe know what is going on. After all, they are ruling the world in our time. They happen to be the best people I know at ‘playing stupid’. As a group, these so-called captains of finance can better be defined by their malignant narcissism­, pathologic­al arrogance, risk-takin­g addiction, extreme foolhardin­ess and outrageous greedmonge­ring activities­.

    Steven Earl Salmony

    AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population­, est. 2001, Chapel Hill, NC

    http://www­.panearth.­org/

  17. Juliana Avatar
    Juliana

    Oh brother, attempting match everyone’s impossible standards..wow I feel like I’m in high school.

    I made the hashtag because I noticed that a lot of the occupy folks had adopted TeaParty language, and it’s just as ignorant when they do it.

    As in:

    No, Congress doesn’t “work for us” they are elected to Represent us at the Federal level. Yes, I know I suck for saying it.

  18. ire Avatar
    ire

    So I offer sincere felicities for an anniversary and now I am subverting or denigrating a movement?

    Man, I just can’t catch a break.

    Pretty sure I speak for all the BfD posters (past and present) when I say that we would be just horribly devastated if Zaid were to stop caring about us. Just, I mean…I wouldn’t know how to go on. Believe it or not, I live for validation from CAP.

  19. Peaches Avatar

    Wait, we have a mission statement?

  20. JMPrince Avatar

    The essential problem being that you likely know few of either.

  21. Jakey Avatar
    Jakey

    With “Democrats like these,” who needs Republicans

  22. Eddy Galuska Avatar
    Eddy Galuska

    I think you mean the most widely read group discussion blog for like six people in Georgia.

  23. Zaid Avatar

    so is bfd’s mission statement here to become even more irrelevant and ineffective as a group discussion blog for like six people or what

  24. Julianal Avatar
    Julianal

    I’ll admit I’ve followed most of the “Occupy” fill in the blank on Twitter and found it more interesting than reading about it later.. the brutality is pretty bad…

    Tonight I started a new “hashtag” well because even I can’t take some of the really ignorant stuff being said.. so here goes

    this was my tweet

    @JulianaIllari New hash tag #occupycivics please use it when correcting folks who don’t know how a bill becomes a law and what the courts or President does

    Sweet Jesus on a breadstick.. yes it’s come to this OccupyCivics

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *